Terence Stamp: General electric

Published 7:00 pm, Wednesday, December 31, 2008

By ANGELA DAWSON

Entertainment News Wire

HOLLYWOOD -- Terence Stamp has gotten a lot of mileage out of playing villains, particularly his iconic role as the evil General Zod in two "Superman" movies. Stranded in Montreal late one night, he couldn't find a way to get to his hotel. A dark SUV pulled up and the driver called to him, "You're General Zod. What are you doing here?" The British actor responded he was waiting for a taxi. The stranger then offered to give the actor a lift to wherever he wanted in exchange for a photo. "Anything," the actor recalls responding with great relief. Another time, he was at a New York bathhouse when he noticed some tough looking guys staring at him from across the steam room. "Are you that Zod guy?" one of them finally asked. "Smile when you say that," he retorted in an authoritative Zod-like voice.

The onetime heartthrob turned character actor has a million stories. Many were chronicled in three volumes of his published memoirs, which were fairly popular in Britain. He wrote another volume about his "lost years" (the late '60s to the late '70s), when he went to India and lived in an ashram before returning to Hollywood (to star opposite Christopher Reeve in Richard Donner's "Superman"). He didn't find the finished work up to snuff and destroyed it before sending it to his publisher. Instead, he wrote a novel, then a cookbook for dairy and wheat intolerant folks like himself.

"I've been wheat- and dairy-free since the beginning of 1970, and my health is fine," says the 69-year-old, who despite his shock of white hair appears vigorous and fit.

Maintaining his stamina is vital to keeping up with a busy workload. This past year he appeared in four films: "Get Smart," "Wanted," "Yes Man" and "Valkyrie."

"I just like to do things I feel good about or I'm going to have fun doing," he says.

The divorced actor insists he doesn't mind playing supporting roles as long as the story and the people involved in the project interest him. With that criteria in mind, it didn't take him long to say yes to "Valkyrie," the World War II suspense drama starring Tom Cruise. The actor had just wrapped production on "Get Smart" in Montreal and was literally on his way to the airport to return home to London, when his driver got a call from the actor's manager. (Stamp doesn't carry a cell phone.) The manager told him he was to meet with Cruise and director Bryan Singer in London the next day.

He did so and 20 minutes after he returned home from the meeting, his manager called to say he had the job.

"I read the script -- actors are suckers for a good script -- and I thought it was wonderful," he recalls. "So I thought, OK, fine."

Next thing he knew, he was off to Berlin to portray the heroic general, Ludwig Beck. Beck was part of a contingent of courageous German resistance organizers who tried to topple Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime.

"It's hard to say what I would have done had I had more time," Stamp says of preparing to play his character. "The truth is I didn't have any time so I was quite happy to go with the words."

Years ago, noted British actor Wilfrid Lawson advised Stamp to "learn the words." And though he thought the aging actor was dismissing him by giving him such obvious advice, Stamp discovered it was actually quite useful.

"Learning the words" of Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander's "Valkyrie" script served as his entry into the character of the good general.

Beck had served as chief of staff for the German army from 1933 to 1938. He was one of the first military leaders to openly criticize Hitler's military strategies before stepping down. He then developed an underground network of military and civilian agents who helped form the central German opposition. One of those sympathizers was Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, a senior commander who masterminded the attempted Hitler assassination and coup of the Nazi government in the summer of 1944, called Operation Valkyrie. Von Stauffenberg planted a bomb at Hitler's well-fortified military compound but the blast spared the madman. Unaware the mission had failed, Beck and other members of the operation attempted to take over the government in Berlin, supported by Germany's reserve army, only to learn that Hitler was still alive. Upon his capture, Beck was ordered to commit suicide, while von Stauffenberg and the other active military members who were part of the conspiracy were executed.

Stamp says it was his job to find within himself "the moral high ground" of the Beck character.

"This was a guy who was accountable to himself and he fell on his sword," he says. "I thought to myself, it's a privilege for me to do that. This guy lifted his country above his personal safety and the safety of his friends. It's a real change from the villainous roles I usually get offered."

Working with Cruise, who plays the heroic von Stauffenberg, was exciting, he says.

"Tom -- although he kind of owned the studio and was producing the movie and was starring in it and had all this baggage -- none of it was visible," says Stamp. "On the set, he was just one of the chaps, which is wonderful considering his stature in the film business."

Stamp also relished the opportunity to work with a slew of respected veteran actors, including Kenneth Branagh, Tom Wilkinson, Eddie Izzard and Bill Nighy. Surprisingly, he'd never previously worked with any of them, though he knew some of them socially.

"I've just admired Tom Wilkinson from the first time I saw him in 'Shakespeare in Love,"' he says. "And Eddie Izzard has got such a wonderful mind. He's got an encyclopedia knowledge of the Second World War."

Between takes, he got to chat with Cruise.

"We talked about some of the dates I had in my youth," Stamp says with a laugh. "He's obviously been with beautiful women as I used to be. So I thought that was very common ground to talk about. We didn't talk about the acting much."

Stamp insists he didn't mind not having a lot of screen time but he was determined to honor Beck, making sure he had a lot of presence whenever he was on-screen. As so often happens with Stamp, he delivers one of the film's memorable lines: Remember this is a military operation. Nothing ever goes according to plan.

He chuckles when reminded of this.

"Unfortunately, I didn't make that one up; it already was scripted," he says.

Stamp has clear memories of the war. Growing up in London's East End, some of his earliest memories include the bombing of his home.

"I wasn't old enough to think of it as violent; it was simply an incident," he says. "I remember coming out of an air raid shelter and seeing the house gone. Everything was being put in my pram and being wheeled to the next empty house."

He also recalls taking refuge with his mother in a subway station, then emerging to see the city on fire.

"The first impressions are the deepest," he says wearily. "I got used to deprivation sort of early on. I remember after the war eating my first banana."

Life got sweeter for Stamp after the war. After graduating from school, he got a job in advertising and was quite successful at it. But he longed to be an actor. He remembers being mesmerized by Gary Cooper in "Beau Geste."

He later met Cooper and recalls him being "a real prince."

Director-actor Peter Ustinov discovered the handsome blue-eyed actor, and cast him in the title role of his 1962 adaptation of Herman Melville's "Billy Budd." Stamp earned an Oscar nomination for that performance, and the role made him an international star. As a young, handsome actor in the '60s, Stamp dated a bevy of beautiful women, including Julie Christie and Brigitte Bardot. His relationship with Christie was referenced in the Kinks song, "Waterloo Sunset." After his breakup with supermodel Jean Shrimpton, Stamp moved to India, dropping out of society for several years.

Donner coaxed him back to play the nefarious Krypton General Zod. Stamp did so reluctantly.

"I hadn't worked for about 10 years and I was very nervous because it was apparent that they just wanted me to play ugly and horrible," he recalls.

A Dutch baron friend encouraged him to take the role, assuring him that it would introduce him to a new generation of moviegoers. "By the time they grew up," he says the baron told him, "there will be more people who want to be like Zod than Superman. And it kind of came to pass."